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Depression, Deepak and New Perspectives
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The Prescription for depression? "Oops, nevermind!" by Deepak ChopraWhen it comes to depression and anxiety, a prescription may not be the only answer. Deepak Chopra explains how positive lifestyle changes can have powerful benefits if you're struggling with depression and anxiety.
Most of us have been depressed at one time during our lives, or know someone who is seriously depressed. When Prozac burst on the scene 20 years ago, it seemed that a major step had been achieved. More people responded well to the drug and fine-tuning it was easier than with past antidepressants.
Since then, taking antidepressants has become as normal as taking aspirin for a headache. Yet the ebullience of the Prozac generation was steadily undercut. Many patients didn't respond to the point that it is now conceded that more than half of depressed people may not benefit from any standard antidepressant. Along with alarming statistics about violence and suicide associated with these drugs, the treatment of depression has become increasingly shaky.
Now a major study has concluded that the entire approach of Prozac and related drugs has been wrong from the start. That's a very big "oops" on the part of pharmaceutical companies and the research they use as justification for their billion-dollar drugs.
Professor Eva Redei, who is a leading depression researcher at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, has just burst not one but two bubbles, in the form of long-held beliefs about depression.
Belief #1: Depression is directly linked to stress.In other words, if awful things happen to you, you will become depressed. Stressors include loss of a loved one, a failed job, bad relationship, tragic accident or major financial loss. We call these depressing events, but Redei found that the genes related to stress are totally different from those related to depression.
Belief #2: Depressed people have chemical imbalances in their brains.
For 20 years, researchers have repeated the mantra that low levels of essential messenger molecules—serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine—lead to depression. "My brain made me feel this way" seems so logical that antidepressants almost entirely work by manipulating levels of neurotransmitters in the brain. But Redei found no depletion of genes that produce these chemicals in depressed people.
It's a wonder, given the false basis of the theory, that any of these drugs work. And some researchers suggest that they don't, but depend, in fact, on a strong placebo response in the patients who are helped. To get back to square one, Redei suggests something that should have been obvious all along: Depression starts higher up than chemicals. It starts with the formation and functioning of neurons. To put it in layman's language, the brain cells in depressed people are adapted to express their depression. This takes the form of neural pathways that carry a message of sadness and hopelessness instead of those pathways that carry a message of happiness and optimism.
Being a laboratory researcher, Redei takes her shattering conclusion and heads off in much the same direction as before: She wants to find newer, better drugs that will manipulate genes and neurons rather than manipulating the chemicals they produce. Yet there is a more logical way to proceed, which is to stop making depressed neural pathways and healing those that already exist.
How to do that? Current research is very optimistic, because it turns out that the positive lifestyle changes advised for such a long time actually change both genetic expression and neural pathways. In other words, your brain cells listen to your behavior and beliefs, and if those behaviors and beliefs are powerful enough, the brain changes. What this means is that therapy, spiritual practices, healthy relationships, love and compassion, avoidance of toxins, meditation and stress management aren't secondary. They are central to dealing with depression and anxiety.
The deep lesson emerging from Redei's new findings is that drugs will never be the way. The way is far more human, and therefore complicated. It would be nice if popping a pill improved your life, but only you can do that. The ball is back in the court of the human potential movement and its promise of higher consciousness as the road to health and wholeness. I for one view that as a great improvement over drugs, which can be saved for critical and chronic conditions when more human strategies have not worked.
My two cents:I take drugs (lexapro to be exact) for depression (dysthymia being the diagnosis) and found it to be very helpful (tho not always)...but I also do the talk therapy.
Lexapro is the number one most prescribed drug in the world and so many of us our are SSRI's that traces of the stuff shows up in the water supply (from our collective pissing). It is easy to just pop a pill and think that it is going to change our life, make us a better person, etc. blah blah blah. And I think that this is a sign that there is something truly off in our lifestyle that so many of us are on brain drugs to get us through the drudgery of modern life.
In my case I give lexapro credit for removing the sensation that I was slowly and methodically being crushed and swallowed by some unseen and unidentifiable force. But it only opened a door, it doesn't take away the cause, doesn't remove the root. That takes a will and desire (and a fuck all load of effort) to change and recognize the moments when ones brain is trying to undermine you. and even with that it doesn't always work-- but sa la vie. The expectation that life should always be enjoyable and that we deserve better and that if we just think positively everything will be roses is a marketing pitch sold to us by the soulless vampires of the contemporary machine...
yes, I had too much coffee this am.
discuss:
Hey Shad!!!Thanks so much for piping in here. I really appreciate your personal experience with this situation.
I worry about all the people who have been prescribed many of these drugs but don't seriously realize how important talk therapy is for recovery.
A fair bit of life and mood depends on all kinds of subtle and subconscious patterns we learn while growing up. Unravelling those patterns (even "good healthy functional families can have patterns that hold us back) is a major influence in effecting how we think about life and move in the world.
Shad, you've also made a brilliant observation. It's somethign that often people underestimate and tend to shrug off. In the past previous generations put on a stiff upper lip so to speak...but it is a huge factor in growing depression of the last twenty years. it's a dirty dirty secret...the sheer drudgery of so many people's jobs...and lives...to work at places for people who are intolerant, sometimes bored, borigng...it takes a special amount of energy to get through a dead beat job while barely making money to feed ourselves and loved ones, find entertainment etc.
And...the ONLY people who honestly talk about this are rock stars, alternative young people, like the ravers and punks (of yore ha)...and the depressed. But there is this seethign undercurrent that no one speaks of...why do we live these livs...why aren't we able to shake off this feeling of drudgery with what our society says is "how we live" ..One of the major reasons of the pop culture sucess of a movie liek The Matrix was because half of it's plot was based on this dirty secret of how much life in industrial society sucks!
I want to say more but I also want to think about this....
Shad wrote: "My two cents:I take drugs (lexapro to be exact) for depression (dysthymia being the diagnosis) and found it to be very helpful (tho not always)...but I also do the talk therapy.
Lexapro is the num..."
Lexapro works for me. For anxiety. The talk therapy does not. Maybe I've just been to some really bad therapists, but I'll never know because I'm done with them. I don't like all the mumbo-jumbo they try to lay on me. For me, it's simple: Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes it sucks. Some people can roll with the punches more easily than others. For those who are getting overwhelmed, lexapro can be a godsend. I'm all for not relying on it to "fix" things, though. It's just a temporary help. Lexapro removes the feeling of being overwhelmed, so we can approach things more peacefully and objectively.
Meditation works far better for me than cognitive therapy. But I think if cognitive therapy works, a person should go to a therapist. I'm only against them for me.
Many years ago, when I went through a seriously bad time, my Aunt talked me through the whole thing, she was an extremely 'common sense' person, and had a wonderfully realistic approach to life in general. Sometimes what we really need is a reality check, and simply be told that it will be ok eventually. When you're in the middle of something bad, it's hard to see that it'll ever get better. All it takes is someone to really LISTEN. And give sensible feedback.
I have been to a few shrinks that are total whack jobs, but I have been lucky enough to find one now that is excellent. She mainly just listens to me whine, and occasionally asks a question. What I find most helpful about therapy is having a safe place to talk to someone who isn't going to be judgmental and who is actually going to really listen.
Yes, I think the listening aspect is the most important part. It's a kind of validation. There is a good line in Fight Club where Marla is talking to Jack and she says she likes going to "meetings" because people really listen...they aren't just hearing you while waiting for their turn to talk.There is so much "truth" is that kind of validation of calm listening. I don't think it's a failure of our loved ones or friends if we don't always get a chance to have that kind of listening or give that kin d of listening. Sometimes we are all too wrapped up or too rushed and busy t really visit each other and listen.
One of the best things I learned from therapy...was that full on present....listening.
Like Pontalba I had a relative who listened to me. Both my grandmothers actually would LISTEN to me. I look back and I just feel such a loved memory of tat kind of listening.
From my grandmothers and a kind listening therapist...one of the best massive improvements in all my relationships...is what I learned about listening. Real present listening is also a gift for the listener. It's as if time stops when you really just listen and process what someone says to you. It's part a kind of surrender and a type of meditation.
Another thing...is I used to be part of a couple of meditation groups and part of "practicing" meditation was to talk. It was called satsang.
Satsang (Sanskrit sat = true, sanga = company) is in Indian philosophy the company of the "highest truth," the company of a guru, or company with an assembly of persons who listen to, talk about, and assimilate the truth.This typically involves listening to or reading scriptures, reflecting on, discussing and assimilating their meaning, meditating on the source of these words, and bringing their meaning into one’s daily life.
That is one example from Wiki of Satsang...but satsang is also a concept of speaking out loud what you feel or think or how meditaion is playing out in your life and reflecting on events...often with philosophical ruminations.
I see western therapy as related to this ancient practice of speaking and listening...and AA also functions with similar structure and benefits inn their "meetings".
It's interesting how much speaking and listening is part of many spiritual rituals. A good pastors sermon can be thing of revelation and beauty. A good review of a movie or book written by someone heart can also inspire reflection and learning.
I think the listening and sharing almost has to be given a ritualistic respect. With my grandmothers, there would be a making of tea to settle nerves while we talked. Maybe some special sweets brought out of a freezer. and time set apart to really talk. The same with formal AA meeting of talk therapy, or girlfriends going out on the town all dressed up, or a church sermon, or a therapy session. These are all heightened or amplified ordinary situations given special respect.
I think a fair bit of the benefit of talk therapy, whatever it's format, is that we learn about ourselves by saying things out loud.
(The play Hamlet is all about self-knowledge through the soliloquies)
Candy, I'm impressed by your wealth of knowledge (Satsang). You seem to know at least a little bit about almost anything!
Oh Janet, it's so good to "see" you! (I stilll need to get my poop ina group and write a review of your book, bad me!)No, I don't think I know much, but I know a little about a few things. I have almost no useful or practical knowledge ha ha. But for example...how often in life do I need to use Sanskrit, ya know? But when I like aparticular topic...I get really crazy about researcing nd learning about it.
I don't have a clue about geography, politics or "smart stuff" from school, heh heh...but hey I can't complain about sort of sounding smart hee hee.
Northwestern research finds drugs aim at wrong target
CHICAGO --- More than half the people who take antidepressants for depression never get relief.
Why? Because the cause of depression has been oversimplified and drugs designed to treat it aim at the wrong target, according to new research from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The medications are like arrows shot at the outer rings of a bull's eye instead of the center.
A study from the laboratory of long-time depression researcher Eva Redei, presented at the Neuroscience 2009 conference in Chicago this week, appears to topple two strongly held beliefs about depression. One is that stressful life events are a major cause of depression. The other is that an imbalance in neurotransmitters in the brain triggers depressive symptoms.
Both findings are significant because these beliefs were the basis for developing drugs currently used to treat depression.
Redei, the David Lawrence Stein Professor of Psychiatry at Northwestern's Feinberg School, found powerful molecular evidence that quashes the long-held dogma that stress is generally a major cause of depression. Her new research reveals that there is almost no overlap between stress-related genes and depression-related genes.
"This is a huge study and statistically powerful," Redei said. "This research opens up new routes to develop new antidepressants that may be more effective. There hasn't been an antidepressant based on a novel concept in 20 years."
Her findings are based on extensive studies with a model of severely depressed rats that mirror many behavioral and physiological abnormalities found in patients with major depression. The rats, after decades of development, are believed to be the most depressed in the world.
From here:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_release...#